


Lay Your Burdens Down

by Ladyofwarandmercy



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 12:10:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4348316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladyofwarandmercy/pseuds/Ladyofwarandmercy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Trip dies in the Kree city, he moves onward to what is next, but he has to put down his burden. Can Gonzales and Raina do the same?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lay Your Burdens Down

Being petrified only hurt for an amazingly short time. Antoine Triplett had a brief glimpse as he floated away, seeing Skye and Raina emerge from the stone, but it was like the rip current on the beach near where he grew up. Once you were no longer anchored to the ground you were pulled away. And this tide pulled Trip’s soul to what appeared to be a riverbank. He walked along quietly, with some other souls. The gun in his holster grew heavy. Trip pulled it out and looked at it. In the reflection, he could see the kills he had made, his regrets about not seeing John Garrett for what he was, and even the times he blew off seeing Aunt Peggy before the Alzheimer’s hit. Trip closed his eyes in a brief prayer, and with some wrench of regret, he laid the gun down.  That was when he noticed that some of the other souls taking the path with him were too encumbered to continue. But every burden was something the soul _could_ lay down. It was just a question of whether they _would_ lay it down. Even the souls Trip saw with shackles on their arms and feet had the keys around their necks. Some he even recognized as soldiers in the Puerto Rico hotel. Many of the HYDRA soldiers were burdened with things they had done in life, and not regretted before death had drawn them to this path by the river. But as Trip had laid his own burden down, the tide pulled him ever forward, on a path down the river towards the ever-setting Sun.

Time did not seem to exist, but it seemed to have been sunset ever since Trip had gotten to the river, and he had had enough conversations with the other souls that the sun should have set by now. Oh well, this was life after death, so time was probably pretty meaningless here. After some indeterminate amount of time, he saw Bob Gonzales his very own self, trying to drag a briefcase with him. “BOB!” Trip bounced up to his old friend and sometimes boss. “How long have you been dragging this thing?” Robert Gonzales smiled up at Trip. “I used to have a sense of time. But I think I need a brain for it to work. I know I haven’t been here that long. Those Inhumans are just crazy, I tell you. Agent Skye’s mother did this to me!” As Robert said that, Trip noticed the briefcase get heavier in Gonzales’s arms. “Aw, Bob. I’m finding you can’t take it with you if you want to reach the end here. Come on, let it go. It’s always gonna be sunset here, and I think we might actually make it to the Sun if we hoof it.” Gonzales tried, but the briefcase weighed him down, and he just could not let it go yet.

As much as Trip wanted to stay with his old friend and help, the tide was carrying Trip onward. Presently, he came across that problematic beauty he had developed a bit of a crush on when he was still alive. She seemed bewildered as she stared into a heavy mirror. “Hello, Trouble. Remember me?” This actually got Raina to look up. The smile she gave him was sad. “It took dying for me to get my face back. But I guess it’s what I deserved. At Trip’s confused look, Raina explained, “You were there, but not long enough to see what happened. Skye and I transformed. And Skye, who never pursued her destiny, she ended up beautiful with the power to shake the earth. And me? After everything I did, every awful thing I did, ended up hideous. It took a long time for the others to even figure out what my Gift was. But we figured it out. I could see the future, and the war Jiaying was willing to start. I died to warn Skye what she was doing. Jiaying could not let go of what happened to her. It just colored every interaction she had with you Muggles.” They each grinned at one another, recognizing a fellow Potterhead. Trip jerked a thumb at his chest. “Gryffindor forever!” Raina gave him a raised eyebrow, “Slytherin rules!” They both laughed, and Trip could feel the pull of the tide again. “Raina, you can’t take that mirror with you.” Raina took a last look, pursed her lips, and spiked it to the ground. “I spent too much of my life looking in that mirror. Maybe I just want to see what’s next.” The tide pulled both of them forward. Unencumbered, they chased and played as they moved forward, like a pair of happy children. They even got to see Jiaying, trying to push a medical gurney that just got heavier and heavier as she tried.

After some amount of time they lacked the cues to measure, they actually reached the end of the river, and the Sun towards which they walked was not even the Sun at all, but something far more beautiful and magnificent. The tide was pulling them into it, and Trip, a gentleman to the last, stepped back and gestured Raina forward. “Ladies first!”

The next thing Trip (Who is Trip?) knew, everything was in shades of black and red. The whoosh-whoosh that punctuated the background noises was occasionally penetrated by voices. The voices sounded odd from this place, but there was something familiar about them. The female voice liked to sing, and it comforted him, even as odd as it sounded from within her body. The male voice was easiest to hear when everything was still, and Trip(?) could feel a gentle hand through the layer of flesh settle on his back. “Hello, little guy. It’s Daddy. They tell me you’re a boy. Guess that means your name is Thomas Antoine. Don’t worry, Tommy Ant. After your big sister you should be a snap. Even if I don’t know that much about being a good daddy. I’m breaking the pattern, which is all I can do.” Thomas Antoine (something very familiar about the name Antoine…)shuffled visibly in response, which got a chuckle and another caress. After some time, everything squeezed tightly, and Mommy was screaming. Machines were beep-booping, and then it hit…all at once. The light, clear, unmuffled sound, and the cold, cold air. He yelled and peed as he was poked and prodded, then wrapped in something warm and handed back to Mommy. He looked up and saw…Skye smiling down at him. The shock of it stopped the crying, and he simply stared at her face. Presently, Grant Ward (???) moved into the picture with a loving smile on his face, as he cradled a toddler girl who looked like a tiny Skye. But when the toddler girl’s eyes met his, the last memory of Trip saw Raina there. “Hi little brother,” the girl said, “Don’t be a pain.” “CALLIE!” both mother and father chorused. Callie took a second look at her new little brother. “Maybe we’ll get along. I’ll read Harry Potter to you….”


End file.
